Blame

How to assign blame

When you listen to people talk about a conflict and who is to blame, the general discussion frames the situation as a sequence events where the actions of somebody cause the actions of somebody else and whoever was at the start of chain is the person to blame. For example, if there is an argument where people exchange unkind words, the general idea is that unkind words from one person trigger the unkind words from the other person, and whoever started the exchange of unkind words is the one to blame. Assigning blame using this method is inevitably contentious because there will be little agreement over what the sequence of events were and which person is responsible for the action that started the chain.

To consider a different perspective on blame (ie moral culpability in a interpersonal conflict), let’s consider the familiar scenario of two bickering sibling in the backseats of a family car ride. The children argue over who started it, and the parents who don’t care who started it, and tell both kids they need to behave themselves. I don’t think that the parent’s perspective is completely correct because in our example they have no interest in who is to blame, but I do agree that the question of who started it is the wrong question to ask.

I believe the best perspective is to think of each conflict as a period of time in which people took some actions, and each action taken by a person is right, wrong, or neutral. Therefore the conflict is not a single unit where for assigning (or not assigning) blame. But each action taken by each person is the unit for assigning blame.

That being said, I do think it is unproductive to worry about assigning blame during an interpersonal conflict. It is better to focus on finding the best course of action to move forward. On the other hand, I do think it is helpful for personal growth to consider how much to blame yourself after the conflict is over. If you are trying to do that, I don’t thinking about blame in terms of who started it is helpful, but considering the key actions you took on an individual basis in terms of blame is.